凤凰卫视希望向十亿观众提供流媒体服务，并表示已经成功了一半
这项技术还没有被用于明年2月的超级碗(Super bowl)直播——很可靠——1.1亿观众 , should the NFL's usual TV audience all switch online. 是这样吗?? Streaming systems developer 凤凰 认为其平台具有独特的全球交付能力, 高质量的, synchronous viewing at broadcast scale today.
"We are good to go and at unprecedented in scale," says Dr. Stefan Birrer是这家芝加哥初创公司的联合创始人兼首席执行官.
“我们梦想着向全球10亿人实时直播奥运会开幕式, a task that is not possible with other streaming technologies,Birrer说。.
在最近的 article for 流媒体, 几家流媒体和CDN公司的高管得出结论，互联网, as it currently stands, is incapable of allowing for mass-scale live streaming.
No so, according to Birrer. 凤凰声称是唯一一家为客户提供真正实时流媒体体验的公司, and operating under the mantra that if it's live, 太迟了.
而大多数服务要么是HTTP 在线直播 (HLS)，要么是WebRTC, both of which trade scale for delay, 凤凰's platform offers the total package—high quality, less than 1/2 second of latency, and a potentially infinite number of concurrent users.
Its suite of technologies, built from scratch, 叫做PCast, 其中包括旨在消除不必要的空闲服务器容量和仅在需要时提供百家乐软件的算法. “快速人群弹性”提供百家乐软件，“在几秒钟内”处理大量人群加入流行流，“不会中断平台”;交互式传输协议为每个独特的连接环境(3G)优化数据包传输, 4G, LTE, Wi-Fi) and available bandwidth.
"Our platform uses a scale-out architecture, where capacity grows linearly with added resources, and load is distributed to nodes with available capacity," explains Birrer. “我们的微服务层旨在处理各种负载级别，以防止组件在任何时候过载. 我们的13个存在点(pop)中的每一个都可以处理数百万并发用户, 并且系统可以使用CNAME或任意cast IP负载平衡进一步扩展."
出生了, “api允许我们的客户构建涉及交互式广播的任何类型的应用程序, whether that's one-to-many broadcast, a few-to-many groupcast, 或者群聊. These APIs are enterprise-ready, WebRTC standard-compliant, and support all mobile devices (iOS and Android), computers (desktop, 移动PC, 平板电脑), and web browsers."
PCast runs on the company's own cloud servers, which run on the Google Cloud Platform, 但凤凰正在寻找其他供应商，所以它不依赖于谷歌(尽管它很好).
On top of this server-assisted CDN-like platform, 凤凰通过邻近多播技术创造了规模，据称可以降低高达80%的操作带宽成本. The company used to be called 凤凰P2P, 但要意识到点对点的负面含义(比如非法分享), 他们更喜欢“同伴辅助分娩”这个词，并把“P2P”从名字中去掉了.
Birrer knows a thing or two about P2P. 他有个M.S. 和Ph值.D. 西北大学计算机科学专业，专攻P2P流媒体算法. Also on the 凤凰 team is lead scientist Fabian Bustamante, a professor of computer science at Northwestern.
"Using peer-assisted delivery, 应用程序在后端需要更少的带宽，从而降低了交付内容的总成本,Birrer说。. “对等点利用附近的对等点将部分或全部带宽需求从后端卸载到网络. 我们的同伴辅助技术自然会随着参与的同伴数量而扩大."
Prior to setting up 凤凰 in 2013, Birrer曾在芝加哥软件和财务管理公司SempiTech工作，在那里他为Rabbit公司设计和开发了一个社交视频聊天应用程序，并致力于交易和消息系统的应用程序，这些经验使他能够开发一种延迟在毫秒级的视频流技术.
"The internet's next wave is realtime. 当我们开始开发《百家乐app下载》时，延迟是分分钟的。. “从那以后，视频质量有所提高，但延迟仍然是一个主要问题. 当年轻一代想要现在的一切时，需要有一个更好的方法, 也不会因为朋友或邻居比你早一分钟看到比赛结果而毁掉一场体育直播体验."
In a similar scenario to the Mayweather vs. McGregor Showtime stream, Birrer认为，一些问题可以通过凤凰这样的技术得到缓解, which is "aware" when the platform is being overloaded.
“如果你的目标是400万用户，而你在几分钟内就获得了500万用户, 平台必须能够对此做出反应并相应地扩展容量. Most systems are not aware of the limits. 我们平台的基本方法是采用先进的监测和控制算法, 邻近组播能够快速适应不断变化的网络环境."
他说，如今每个POP都有30万并发流的认证. 这, 虽然, 如果像超级碗这样的赛事来了，每个数据中心可以轻松扩展到500万甚至800万吗. In that instance, 凤凰 would set up 30 POPs (in the U.S), each scalable up to 5 million users, he says.
"Because we built our stack from the ground up, 我们对它有非常深入的了解，我们可以做一些其他许多人做不到的选择. 你可以有两个编码器并行做同样的事情，并交换一个信号为另一个，如果一个流失败. The goal is end-to-end redundancy."
It has 10 paying customers, some for two years, 包括一家“价值10亿美元的亚洲公司”，以及另外20到30个概念验证测试. These include companies in social media, 新闻, 和电子, as well as a sports broadcaster in Europe. No names were provided.
凤凰 raised $3.在去年4月的A轮融资中，该公司获得了500万美元的融资，使其融资总额超过了5美元.5 million since launch.
即将到来的Pcast是边缘插入广告，以避免广告拦截. 该公司还在寻求向国际市场扩张，尤其是中国.
“尽管我们已经提供了超高速流，但我们仍在寻求使其更快，并减少几百毫秒. 我们想开发一种技术，可以在全球范围内直播奥运会开幕式. That is the type of ambition we have."
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